Carl P. Leubsdorf commentary: Christie's win a good example for Republicans to follow

Friday

Nov 8, 2013 at 12:01 AMNov 8, 2013 at 10:11 AM

For the first time since 1973, the party that won the White House has followed up by taking the Virginia governorship a year later. But the message from Terry McAuliffe's victory Tuesday was less an omen for future Democratic successes than a warning to Republicans of what not to do.

For the first time since 1973, the party that won the White House has followed up by taking the Virginia governorship a year later. But the message from Terry McAuliffe’s victory Tuesday was less an omen for future Democratic successes than a warning to Republicans of what not to do.

By running a sharply conservative candidate in a state whose 2008 and 2012 presidential votes precisely mirrored the vote nationally, Republicans lost the moderate, female and minority votes that are crucial for winning such swing states.

“For Republicans to be competitive,” former Virginia GOP Rep. Tom Davis said on MSNBC, “they’ve got to be able to carry states like Virginia. And you’re not going to do it with a hard-right stance.”

Still, given the narrow margin of Ken Cuccinelli’s defeat in Virginia, tea party supporters are likely to continue to press their campaign for a more purely conservative GOP. Doing so will put them at risk of enduring more election nights like this one.

One need only contrast Cuccinelli’s loss with Gov. Chris Christie’s landslide re-election in New Jersey to see the difference between a losing national course for Republicans and a potentially winning one.

Though Christie also holds conservative positions on both economic and social issues, he opposed the tea party-led effort that shuttered the federal government and he wooed the normally Democratic state’s minorities and independents. That included reaching out to President Barack Obama when superstorm Sandy ravaged his state last October.

Exit polls showed he won New Jersey moderates by 24 points, while Cuccinelli lost them in Virginia by 22; Christie led among women by 15 points while his Virginia counterpart lost them by 9; and he took 21 percent of African-Americans and 31 percent of liberals, while Cuccinelli had single digits among both.

Christie celebrated his re-election with one eye focused nationally, declaring that, while his chief goal will be to finish the job in New Jersey, “maybe the folks in Washington, D.C., should turn on their TVs right now to see how it’s done.”

But though Christie polled more than 60 percent statewide, exit polls showed only 51 percent said they thought he would make a good president. And thanks in part to Democratic legislative gerrymandering, he provided minimal coattails. For instance, voters enacted a minimum-wage increase that he previously had vetoed. And when matched against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a poll, he trailed the Democrats’ 2016 front-runner, 48 percent to 44 percent.

Christie’s margin of victory was impressive, but former Republican National Chairman Michael Steele said on MSNBC, “I don’t think it’s a bellwether of where the party’s going to go or where the party needs to go. A Republican primary is not the same as running in a general election in New Jersey.”

Indeed, for Christie to succeed nationally, he’d have to win in many conservative states where power is held by the same faction that nominated Cuccinelli in Virginia. Before that contest formally begins, the GOP faces a series of pitched battles between its rival mainstream and conservative factions that will help to indicate its future direction.

In Mississippi on Tuesday, one of the largest tea party groups endorsed state Sen. Chris McDaniel’s 2014 challenge to one of the U.S. Senate’s most senior Republicans, Thad Cochran. And in Texas, tea party groups are urging evangelical historian David Barton to challenge Texas Sen. John Cornyn, despite the Texas senator’s solidly conservative voting record.

On the other hand, the tea party lost a significant GOP congressional primary in Alabama on Tuesday in which the party’s mainstream business bulwarks, like the Chamber of Commerce, threw their financial weight against the tea party candidate. In Virginia, Cuccinelli supporters claim he lost because establishment Republicans abandoned his candidacy.

It will take more than the Virginia and Alabama defeats for the GOP to dismiss the tea party’s argument that a purely conservative course is the way to regain national power. But the New Jersey results make it quite clear that, in Chris Christie, that faction will face a formidable 2016 rival and one more likely to succeed.

Carl P. Leubsdorf is the former Washington bureau chief of The Dallas Morning News.

carl.p.leubsdorf@gmail.com

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.